Stellantis Is Spamming Owners' Screens with Pop-Up Ads for New Car Discounts
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
Now the bulk of car-buying research is not "how good is it?" but "what are the purposefully in-built annoyances? Can I hack them away?"
Ford pulled focus/fiesta lineup from US ignoring great sales (despite widely known DCT issues) just so they can focus on selling the garbage SUVs and pickups, highest margin cars. But hey, no CAFE regulations to follow, can pollute as much as you want.
Jeep quality is a joke - they would've been sued out of existence with trucks like that in Europe. When I first saw the Jeep Gladiator photo I through it was a joke/meme.
Corporations do truly control everything in US. They'll sell you garbage overpriced trucks, convince you to feel happy about them and laught all the way to the bank while raking cash for all "dealer maintenance" required to keep such garbage on the roads. And then they lock down all the maintenance behind encryption so you can't replace a battery without going to the dealer for the unlock code.
Please speedrun your late stage capitalism asap, it's getting harder and harder to watch
id buy another one. (in manual.)
i dont know how many other gen5 fiesta owners would walk down the aisle with that car again tho
i think the dsp’s kind of cool. still have a 2011 in a barn somewhere. its on engine #2 and transmission #2 at 124,000 and thats not even counting all the bad grounds, bad caps, electrical squirrels ive been able to track down and fix. it wasnt that bad to deal with, but i totally empathize with anyone who doesnt remember theirs fondly or want to go out and get another one just like it
You know, when the matrix movie came out, humans as batteries seemed ludicrous, obviously a joke! it's not that unrealistic or funny now.
You and I understand the word "basic" differently.
I wish they'd offer a lifetime purchase option--but maybe they learned from the 2g remote start debacle not to rely on technology they don't control
My 2017 Honda civic has it without a subscription so I was pretty shocked to learn that Subaru decided its customers would be cool with it being behind a pay-wall.
I'm not happy with how consumer choice is boxed in by automakers, but for sensitive systems like ignition, I don't think that their approach is unreasonable.
I get what you’re saying about app-based. My civic has that too and it’s for a cost. I’ve just never needed it since we have the free for life RF version.
At $110/yr for cell-based remote start via Honda link, I’ve saved $770 over the years. Over the life of the car for me I could be looking at doubling those savings. That’s the power of avoiding needless subscriptions.
By the time I get back to addressing the car itself, the snow and ice is easier to brush or scrape off and the doors might actually open without ripping the handle off (which is something that I've directly experienced twice so far in my days).
This all conspires to mean that it makes my life easier.
And it's OK if you don't like the feature and take a very dim view of it. It's also OK that some others may find merit in using it.
It's all OK.
It's not the feature I dislike. I find the practice of idling a car to warm it wasteful and polluting.
Even better to move to a place where there isn't regularly any winter weather. Perhaps something below the 35th north parallel, and as close to sea level as can be mustered, would be good.
Let's all do this. It will be a Great New Beginning for so many people.
And thereafter, we'll burn our money polluting the world by running the aircon while we drive instead of burning it to help pre-emptively warm our cars on wintry days.
If you park your car in your garage you'll burn less fuel and own less stuff (because you can't store it in your garage). I'm telling you an easy way to save time, money, and your own energy (scraping ice) and you're mocking me. That's nice.
(I adore and embrace every opportunity for a stranger on the Internet to tell me how I should live.)
I thought you were talking about air conditioning in buildings. In warm climates, in a car, cooling is usually free: roll down your window and catch something called a "breeze". Works great unless you're on the freeway. But if everyone moved to a warm climate, as you, suggested we'd be living way more dense so you'd drive way less anyway. checkmate
There are also these things called "electric vehicles" that you can charge with solar power without requiring a panel on the vehicle.
> I adore and embrace every opportunity for a stranger on the Internet to tell me how I should live.
You're welcome! Normally I don't care what people do. But this idling cars affects everyone's air quality.
Over here in reality: It is that time of year again where the weather is shifting.
I think I'll stay where I am, park in whatever location it is that suits me, and start looking into remote starter kits for my Honda.
And I'm quite certain that I don't care at all what my neighbors may think of this.
I mean that was pretty much the outcome I expected from this interaction.
We had a hybrid replacement Yaris. It's nice but it still turns on the engine when it's cold. I wasn't complaining abut the noise, but the fumes. Diesels are the worst, regardless of CO2 rating, but gas engines produce a lot more CO even if they stink less. There are places where idling is regulated up to 5 minutes.
https://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/environment/pollution/air-qual...
There’s a time limit on it on my car, I think about 10 minutes or something pretty sane. If you don’t get into your car by then it turns back off automatically.
And sometimes I did use it to keep the car running while doing other stuff. This function was a design intent of the device.
It would work like this: Drive to a destination not so far away on a cold wintry day and put transmission in park like usual. Then, push the start button on the remote and turn the ignition switch off.
After that: Remove key, get out, lock doors, go do whatever quick errand it was that had us out to begin with, and return to a car that was finally actually warm inside. The engine and accessories would continue running uninterrupted, like nothing ever happened.
After returning: Put key in, turn it to "on", select a gear, on to the next destination. Engine stays running the whole time.
When I read about this function, I figured I'd never use it. But it did work very well and my then-wife liked it quite a lot. Also if short, cold runs are bad for things like bearing wear and oil contamination, then keeping it running and letting it get up to operating temperature was perhaps a nicer way to treat that old engine than the alternative of never letting it really get warm might have been.
(It would time out and turn off after about 10 or 15 minutes. Otherwise, the engine would cease immediately upon touching the brake pedal if the ignition switch wasn't on.)
Sure, it sucks when someone idles a diesel outside your house, but new cars are QUIET.
Interpretation The Second: These vehicles are maintained by a corporation that is both greedy and incompetent.
The service writer told me (and documented) that the car needed rear pads when I came to pick it up.
That's a little weird, I thought.
I took it to a tire place for snows two weeks later. They inspect that shit for the upsell while the wheels are off anyway. Front and rear brakes: fine.
Checked 'em myself. Sure enough, barely worn.
That was the last time that car visited the dealer.
I still have to pull the dash apart to bypass the spy box they never mentioned when selling the car.
These dicks feel they aren't making enough money just making and selling cars they have to do shady shit.
Well fuck that, I won't buy a new one again.
Never going to that dealer ever again.
I was thinking of the exploit back from 2023 that effected Acura, Genesis, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Infiniti, Nissan, and Porsche. I remember it being discussed on HN at the time but I can't find the relevant thread. Here is an article covering it: https://www.securityweek.com/16-car-makers-and-their-vehicle..., at the time.
I’d understand a complaint for heated seats subscription, but not for remote start.
What I didn't think about was this would be an opportunity for ads and subscriptions. And everyday you'll own less and less of your car. I'm shopping for a car right now, I may have to just put a fresh coat of paint on my old one.
I can't imagine the expletives that'll come out of my mouth the day I'm running late for a meeting and my car won't start because its in the middle of an update.
You don't update anything if it works and it's not connected to internet.
If it works and is connected to internet, then disconnect it from internet if possible.
For the rest, delay updates for long enough without having heard complaints that there's sufficient confidence on the update not breaking anything.
Come back to me when there's a punitive liability model for OTA updates. If the garage manages to break something during, that's on the garage, not me. It should be the same for OTA updates: the company pushing the update should be liable for any failure and for providing replacement transportation if they manage to break my car with an update.
Downside is that we got a recall notice about the software for the backup camera needing an update. I scheduled an appointment, and it took over 3 hours. Asked the service guy why it was taking so long to flash to software, and he said our system needed an update because we had not enabled over-the-air connection with Ford which allows this to be done in the background. Evidently the download speed for this was incredibly slow according to the SG, so it took over two hours before our Mav was current, and they could apply the backup camera fix. Note: I was very suspicious about this claim. I thought it was more likely we were being purposely held captive in the service waiting area -- which has a big screen constantly running Ford ads. I guess that is OK. I had my Kindle, and was into a great book at the time, so I actually was not too put out.
Service is where dealers make their money. You’re convinced that manufacturers will sell data to insurance companies yet believe that dealers will sacrifice hours of profit. That doesn’t work out.
Also: I made sure we were the first appointment, arriving at 7:45am for my 8am reservation. Soon another guy was behind me. One thing I have learned it to always schedule "the first time in the AM" if you do not need immediate service.
Edit: In retrospect, they had turned on the OTA system in the Mav. So maybe when the SG said it was downloading, I thought "to a server" but maybe it was directly to the Mav. As I noted, was not a big issue. Still not using the OTA features.
even for non warrantee service they are generally paid based on how long the job is expected to take not how long it takes them. The only reason to not hurryitoo much is they warrantee their own work and so if you bring it back that costs them.
I can't speak to whether or whither they sell the data, but they are 100% tracking your location and vehicle events
This is the company that ran Chrysler into the ground. The only remaining Chrysler product is one mini-van.
They raised the prices on Jeeps so much that they lost their market. They went the "mild hybrid" route, with such silly things as 21 miles of electric range.
The Stellantis dealers signed a joint letter demanding that the CEO be fired. That was done. It didn't seem to help.
(I own a pre-Stellantis Jeep Wrangler, and would like to buy a replacement, but Jeep now has nothing I want.)
"Mild hybrid" typically refers to a vehicle with a passively-charged battery pack, not a PHEV that has any material amount of electric-only range.
Normal hybrid will at least regain charge when you brake (and maybe from the gas engine?). You don't actively recharge it.
Vehicles with a stated electric-only range are typically PHEVs, which can be plugged in. Some non plug-in hybrids can be driven in electric-only mode for very short distances, at low speeds only.
The jokes write themselves in 2025
The fiesta st is a decent example. An economy car, so very simple, but with a sports package. The only "smart" features, like traction control, can be turned off.
If we were in a car right now and I was driving, I'd have to look at the gearstick to tell you if it was auto or manual.
I genuinely don't get the USian obsession with driving manual gearbox cars being somehow "elite".
Autos (not DCTs) don't generally let you rev the engine as high as manuals do, they don't really let you take advantage of engine braking, and they may ignore your command to manually shift them into a lower gear at will (DCTs can do that too).
You're not really, especially on a long run. If you're doing motorway speeds there is no difference in economy and performance. An auto will be a bit worse in slow driving, when it's using the torque converter which is quite lossy.
> Autos (not DCTs) don't generally let you rev the engine as high as manuals do, they don't really let you take advantage of engine braking, and they may ignore your command to manually shift them into a lower gear at will (DCTs can do that too).
They will let you rev the engine as high as you like and will engine-brake just fine if you select a lower gear. They might not shift into a lower gear if you've got a gearbox that's smart enough to stop you money-shifting the engine.
Most Xantias had a 1.9 petrol making roughly 50% more power, although with appreciably less torque.
Automatics have been more efficient than manuals for decades. And the computer can shift a DCT faster than you can. These days a manual tranny is right up there with hand-crank starting your car: if you enjoy it, great, but don’t get smug because people don’t want to manually adjust the spark advance.
No, they haven't. At least, not ones the average consumer could actually buy.
While it's true that modern 8 or 10 speed automatic transmissions do now compete favorably with 6 speed manuals, the former didn't meaningfully exist in passenger cars or trucks until around 2017. Neither did DCTs outside of high-end brands- sure, they're starting to do that now that "torque converter loss" means they don't pass emissions, but that was an option that commanded a premium back in the mid-00s when they were introduced (and still not actually more efficient than a manual outside of shift speed).
An automatic with 4 gears is less efficient than a manual with 5, much less 6 (this was the standard until about 2010 or so); one with 6 gears is likely on par with the 5-speed manual (and loses to a 6-speed, obviously).
So no, "decades" is bullshit. It's a very recent advancement.
First car I looked up from 20 years ago (I own one), and the automatic does just a bit better than the manual:
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2005_Scion_xB.shtml
We bought manual version despite that. You shouldn’t have a hard time finding other examples.
My next daily will likely be something with approximately the same level of technology.
There are about ten buttons on the dashboard, of which the only ones I care about is the rotary knob that turns on the headlights and the button that switches the heater from "normal" to "EVERYTHING UP FULL ALL ON RIGHT NOW FULL BORE MAXIMUM EVERYTHING WE ARE GOING TO AIR FRY A POLAR BEAR ON THE BACK SEAT".
There's an LCD screen. It's the size of my thumb, and tells me how many miles it's done (only 190,000 - it's my low mileage one, my other has done 270 and there's a guy on my forum who's rapidly closing in on 600,000 miles in his), what gear it thinks it's probably in, and occasionally it uses this LCD to lie about the gearbox overheating because water got into the plug for the sensor when I drove through a river and it came over the bonnet.
It's not very fast or very efficient, but it does everything I need a car to do, and I have a full factory service manual for it and easy access to spares.
I love this thing, it's a "cold dead hands" kind of car for me. Only has 120k-ish miles on it.
I won't say it's my last car ever, I just have a hard time visualizing swapping it out for anything.
It starts, all the buttons work, it's cosmetically 95%. The single biggest issue is that last year it was down for a couple of months simply because of parts availability. It's not unreliable, but it's swapped a few things (water pump, radiator, A/C has had work twice, guess it's a bit notorious in the community). Purchased in 2013, it's a 12 year old car.
But waiting months for suspension components (air suspension, which I adore) was a real drag. Even with a dealer supplied rental.
That would be the thing that sends me over the edge long term, I think.
It'll be a shame when it happens, I love the car.
The dealer wants to buy it every time I take it in for routine maintenance.
- radiator replaced
- water pump replaced
- AC repaired (twice)
- suspension rebuilt
And that's considered to be a "good" truck? Good lord I'm happy we don't get such garbage sold here in Europe
They sell luxury goods, which people know to avoid when they care about reliability
The thing is, jeeps are even beating the BMWs when it comes to unreliability.
Yes Mercedes built that garbage for the US market because US market eats that crap. Then stellantis took it a step up and removed reliability from their vocabulary entirely - more profitable that way. I'd pick a modern VW over American garbage all day any day.
But sure, keep yourself convinced about exceptionalism of American SUVs.
G-Wagon is body on frame
The thing is, modern jeeps are a joke even compared to this "reliable" example.
There was a post recently about over-the-air update bricking Jeeps WHILE DRIVING ON THE FUCKING HIGHWAY. And no one cares. People keep buying this trash and defend double AC repairs. ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯
Yes, in spite of this it is considered a good car.
Cost roughly $150K
You call the number, maybe let it ring one time, and hang up. You did your part to opt out.
Then you sue them.
The fundamental financial maneuver of the modern world is to take modest risks of modest loss and financially engineer it into a smaller risk of much, much larger loss, with a higher expected loss (risk*size) in the end after the engineering than before. Forced arbitration (and especially when class arbitration is banned) is that manuever in the legal sphere. It isn't a ticket out of the risk entirely, it's shoving that risk under the rug and making it net larger. If you and a few hundred of your closest friends put their minds to it you can trigger that smaller-chance-of-larger-disaster scenario and all you have to do is file... you don't even have to win.
I won't deny it's an uphill battle but the forced arbitration clauses can be turned to consumer's advantage with relatively modest coordination, you just need to get enough annoyed people together.
(I can't help you with this one, I don't have a car with this problem. Your few hundred closest friends will need standing.)
Relevant.
$50000+ for such garbage? I wouldn't voluntarily sit in such a fish can for more than emergency travels.
It's Renault Zoe level safety -> I would pay $12000 max.
There is a time to put your foot down and that time is now.
https://mlq.ai/news/samsung-faces-backlash-after-rolling-out...
What if we all decided to actually work together to fix this terrible situation? Unfortunately, it will involve collective action, and holding companies accountable who are otherwise very averse to that sort of thing. But dear God, we can't keep "why don't you just"-ing forver as the world closes in around us, people.
If we want a better world, we are going to have to build a better world.
It's hard work. I've done it. I am happy to help you do it. Let me know.
Only 3.1415% joking. I predict people will eventually get credits for saying things like, "Brought to you by Carl's Jr." in their car, bonus if the kids also repeat it. But seriously I figured someone would have found Easter-eggs by now that allowed some form of super-duper-root similar to windows god-mode.
I am honestly surprised that car manufacturers have not been sued into oblivion for adding distractions.
So Toyota's lawyers were OK with drivers reading a legal contract, but not with drivers pressing a couple buttons to get where they need to go.
I believe since I did it, somebody found another way in by inserting a malicious payload into a USB firmware update image.
I know full-screen CarPlay isn't supported without a jailbreak, but I don't care about that myself so haven't done it.
... Oh, and isn't this the same Stellantis that now requires a fuck-ton of hoops to access your own diagnostics now because of their "secure gateway"? (https://autel.us/security-gateways/)
“Nothing stops a Ram, except routine driving”.
I’m completely unsurprised they’re pushing spam to the dashboard.
The crazy thing is BMW has been doing this well for years. They should have just copied the playbook. There’s a little shop icon in the app where you can buy digital services, swag and schedule dealership appointments.
Sometimes it has discounts or track day invitations in there.
2. Disable it.